Warren Industries

Published purpose

n recent years, there has been a sharp increase in demand for lighter components for applications in mobility and transport in response to the need to save weight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coming from conventional combustion engine vehicles and to increase driving range of electric vehicles. Until now, lightweighting solutions have mainly focused on materials like aluminum, magnesium, ultra-high-strength steels and, to a smaller extent, advanced composite materials. However, despite the significant progress accomplished, the industry is still looking for more cost-effective solutions for the mass-production of lightweight components. Through the development of metal-composite hybrids, the potential exists to produce a very low-mass component with tailored strength and stiffness, with reduced cost of either materials, manufacturing complexity or both as compared to that of a similar component manufactured using currently available materials and processes. This Project will advance the understanding of this potential through the evaluation of several design concepts, tested on a generic automotive component. Ultimately, this work will lead to the establishment of design and manufacturing guidelines that will be used to identify potential automotive applications and areas for future research and development activities.